More than five billion people would starve to death as a result of a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia, according to a new study.
The results of such a conflict would be catastrophic for food production, Rutgers University climate scientists have found in a peer-reviewed study published in the context of the Ukraine war.
“The data tell us one thing: we need to prevent a nuclear war from happening,” said one of the authors, Professor Alan Roebuck.
The warning comes as “humanity is just a misunderstanding, a miscalculation of nuclear annihilation,” according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Image: Russian forces occupy the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency has warned of further Russian “provocations” at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, while a mayor said the town where the power plant is located had suffered new bombings.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has described the recent bombings at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant as “out of control” and “extremely serious”.
‘There is no basis’ for Zelensky-Putin peace talks: Follow Ukraine updates live
The new study, published in the journal Nature Food, has calculated the amount of sunscreen soot that would enter the atmosphere as a result of firestorms created by the detonation of nuclear weapons.
They considered six scenarios involving nuclear arsenals of varying sizes, five based on smaller conflicts between India and Pakistan, and one based on a war between the US and Russia.
Even the smaller scenario led to famine, with global average caloric output declining by 7% in the five years following the conflict.
In the largest scenario, a full-scale nuclear conflict, global average caloric output declined by about 90% three to four years after the conflict.
The huge decline in crop yields would starve billions of people, 75% of the world’s population, within two years.
According to the researchers, the disruption to global food markets even from the smallest scenario – the 7% drop – would be greater than the largest anomaly ever recorded.
Although the study focused only on how many calories were being produced globally, humans also need protein and micronutrients to survive, and these are likely to be significantly affected.
Nuclear war would have an even greater impact on climate change, according to Lili Zia, a research assistant professor at Rutgers.
“The ozone layer would be destroyed by stratospheric warming, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on the food supply,” he said.
Read more: What are the risks of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?
The study uses “state-of-the-art climate, crop and fisheries models” to “calculate how food availability could change globally under various nuclear war scenarios.”
It measures how food availability can be affected by export restrictions, as well as the actual reduction in crop yields, and even takes into account countries that reprocess livestock feed so that it can be used for feed humans
He warns: “Even for a regional nuclear war, large parts of the world could starve.”
Interestingly, in the scenario analyzed by the researchers, one country’s caloric output would increase or face only small reductions in the event of a full-scale nuclear war: Australia.
The study does not take into account other aspects of the global food supply that would be affected by nuclear war, including the availability of fuel and fertilizers.
This war could also affect the infrastructure for food production, could increase ultraviolet radiation that can affect food production and also lead to radioactive contamination.
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0:35 Attacks on a ‘suicide’ nuclear power plant
UK ‘must prepare for nuclear war’
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the former head of the British Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Regiment, told Sky News the report was timely.
However, he warned that the report “described the worst possible outcome, basically armageddon, when all the nuclear weapons are released, which in my view is very unlikely.”
“The number one danger, which we are seeing in Ukraine at the moment, is an accident in Zaporizhzhia or a rogue Russian commander using a tactical nuclear weapon,” he added, pointing to a comment he published in the Daily Telegraph calling for Britain to be . more prepared for nuclear war.
“The first scenario could, of course, spread much of the radioactive contamination across Russia and Europe, but it would not cause the extremes in climate and crop failure detailed in this report.”
He told Sky News he hoped Western intelligence agencies would quickly become aware of the movement of tactical nuclear weapons, as they must be transported in large truck-mounted launchers.
“NATO would call them in and Russia knows that NATO’s long-range missiles could take out these launchers long before they had time to fire their missiles,” he added.
“There has been a certain nuclear complacency since the end of the Cold War and this report and the arming of nuclear power plants in Ukraine is a stark reminder that nuclear weapons and accidents could change our way of life.”